Three centuries of camera equipment...and a grain elevator

Smack dab in the middle of St. Joseph, Il is a huge concrete grain elevator. It sits along what is left of the railroad right of way (the tracks have been removed).

It is pretty much the focal point of the downtown, and can be seen from blocks away. Ever since moving to this area I've wanted to photograph the grain elevator. Last weekend I had my chance.

I brought along an assortment of camera gear: my wet plate camera, my 1916 Box Brownie and my digital camera. I wanted to see if I could make images with all three camera formats, of the same subject on the same day. Sort of a cross camera challenge.

Cameras are really just a tool, and I don't get too excited about the newest and greatest cameras out there. I mean, I use some pretty old technology and still get results from these older "obsolete" cameras. So it was fun to go from wet plate, to a box camera and finally to a digital camera with the same subject.

So to kick things off here is a wet plate image of the elevator. It took me four tries to get this plate, I was fighting white concrete against a white sky on a day where the sun was popping in and out of the clouds. This moment that I captured was when the sun was blocked by cloud cover. A quick 2 1/2 second exposure, 1/2 plate tintype:

 

Next on the list are a pair of images made with the box brownie. I was shooting Tri-X, so at 400 asa I as getting somewhere in the f11 to 16 range at 60th of a second. Luckily my fancy pants little cardboard camera has three stops to choose from, so I shot most of the elevator at f16. I framed it up in the wee little glass rangefinders and made some exposures:

And finally.... some digital images shot as tiffs in raw format, and converted to black and white. Digital is the easiest of all formats, and you end up taking more pictures than you really need. Luckily a lot of my other gear is slower paced, and it forces me to be a little less frame happy:

All in all it was a fun shoot, and I enjoyed making pictures with different cameras of the same subject. I think I kept things fairly consistent across the board, making the collection of images fairly equal and balanced no matter what camera was used. And I had fun, that is the most important part :)

Madi in wet plate

Last weekend I had the opportunity to work with a great model named Madi. She is nice aspiring model, and we had a fun conversation before setting up to shoot. She wants to be a photographer as well, so that is pretty awesome :) We set up under some nice shade trees in a park close to my house to make some wet plate images.

The weather was great. Sunny, low humidity and warm with a slight breeze. Exposures were all where I wanted them to be, about 7 second exposures with 18-20 second developing times. When I can zero in on this combo, it works the best for me, giving me nice rich black tones while preserving the highlight details.

The wind was a little strong, and Madi (like lots of folks trying to sit still for seven seconds) moved a bit during the exposure. So I pulled out my head brace to help her out.

What is a head brace? A head brace was used by photographers during the wet plate era to help steady the sitter. Sometimes the brace was used on the back of the head, and other supports down the back to keep the sitter from moving during the exposure time. Here is a photo of Madi from the side, showing her with the head brace in place:

The head brace was made for me by Paul Muller of Muller's Lane Farm. I sent him some photographs and links to head braces of the 1860's, and he used his blacksmithing skills to make me a modern version of the head braces used during the era. It is pretty true to form, with all the swings and movements in the right places, and really helps keep the sitter stationary during the exposure.

Another photo of Madi with head brace in place:

You can barely see the head brace peeking out from behind her.

I chose a camera angle that would hide the head brace as much as possible, just like the photographers of the 1860's. 

The reason I was so excited to work with Madi, is because of her fair skin, her freckles and blue eyes. The wet plate process only sees the blue, green and UV spectrum, so anything red or yellow usually comes out darker than normal. I was blown away by the way the wet plate process worked with her skin tones:

1/6 plate tintype, 7 seconds. I love the way you can see her hair blowing in the wind.

1/2 plate tintype, 7 seconds. You can just see the head brace peeking out on the left side.

1/2 plate tintype, 7 second exposure.

A rogue thunderstorm blew in just as we were working, so our portrait session ended when the rain started falling. With all the outdoor events I attend, dealing with a little rain is just part of the job :) It still was fun, and I enjoyed it a lot.

Modeling with wet plate

The wet plate collodion process is such a phenomenal photographic technique. It has filtered down and influenced all of my work, and lately I have begun to use it for modern subjects as well as my reenacting and living history events. In the past, I made a few "modern"  images at reenactments. Finally this year I started pursuing the wet plate process with a focus on modern subjects.

The things that attract me to wet plate work well with both historical and modern subjects. The lens with it's sweet spot in the center of the image. The swirly out of focus areas and the shallow depth of field. The time it takes to set up and make each individual photograph, as opposed to shooting frame after frame on a digital camera. Wet plate taps into my artistic roots, and forces me to work harder on each image.

In mid July I set my camera up at the David Davis Mansion in Bloomington, Illinois for a living history event. Just as the sun was starting to set; Kera, a volunteer at the mansion, walked up in one of her modern print dresses. She looked beautiful in the dress, and I thought that it would make a great photograph in wet plate, so I asked her to pose for me.

The image came out great! Soft evening light, beautiful gray tones and a painterly like out of focus background.

In late July I set up my camera gear at Deming Park in Terre Haute, Indiana. It was a HOT weekend! I've made wet plate images in the field in all sorts of weather, from freezing temps to boiling hot summer days, and everything in between. So the weather wasn't gonna deter me.

The wet plate setup at Deming Park in Terre Haute. Everything you need to make 19th Century images: camera, chemistry, water, plates and darkroom.

Anastasia and Kayla joined me in the park to make some images. They are both models that I contacted through Model Mayhem, a modeling site that brings photographers, models, make up artists etc. together. This was the first time either of them have had their "images struck" with the wet plate process. It was fun to work with them, and let them see the process from start to finish.

We set up in a shady out of the way spot in the park. I absolutely love working in open shade while making pictures. Wet plate is very complimentary under nice even diffused light.

Both Anastasia and Kayla were troopers, with the heat and humidity (and the bugs :) ).  In all we made about ten or so plates over two and a half hours.

Here is the setup for a portrait of Kayla. The camera in position and a reflector used off to the right to bring in just a little bit of fill light back into the subject. As you can see, the tintype is a direct positive, so everything is reversed in the photograph.

The final plate of the day was with Anastasia. We were both pretty hot and tired, and between the two of us we posed this final photograph. Anastasia was going to lay with the camera directly above her.

Here is the setup for Anastasia's photo. I actually moved the camera over and above her head after looking through the ground glass. I was trying to beat the heat, because the plate was already in the plate holder and starting to dry out. I knew I only had a few more minutes before the plate would be dry and no longer sensitive to light. So I moved the camera, refocused and came up with a nice image.

Wet plate is a slow, labor intensive and hands on process. It involves a lot of prep time and patience by both the photographer and the subject.

In the end it produces one of a kind unique photographs that can never be duplicated again.

It is about as far away from modern digital photography as I can get, and I truly enjoy it.

Box Brownie Part II

The Internet is a great place to learn about antique cameras. I found a copy of the manual for my 1916 Box Brownie on a photography web site.  It is a really cool manual, and has lots of useful information about the camera, as well as photography in general.

One of the last pages in the manual is a list of accessories for your Box Brownie. Of course, the "up sell" has always been popular with photography, and George Eastman was no dummy when it came to camera accessory sales. Among the list is a "portrait attachment" used for taking head and shoulder portraits.

The manual states "The Kodak Portrait Attachment makes large head and shoulder portraits. It can also be used for photographing flowers and similar objects."

Off to the Internet I go again, and on E-bay I found such attachment for sale- for 99 cents! Not really bad since it cost .50 in 1916!

I made the purchase, and it arrived all snug in it's little rusty tin:

 

On the bottom is a folded up piece of Bible paper, with all the information about the Portrait Attachment No. 1. :

The portrait attachment slips snugly in the front of the Box Brownie, and is a macro lens that changes the plane of focus inside the camera. The manual states "The subject must be exactly 3 1/2 feet from the lens; measure the distance carefully from the lens to the face."

This lens is necessary because the little glass lens glued inside the box brownie is a fixed focal lens. That means it is already pre-set to take pictures from about 6 feet to infinity. Think about those disposable film cameras, and you get the idea. The close up attachment allows you to get closer to the subject and make nice portraits. 

So I slipped the little portrait attachment lens in the camera, and amazingly it fits nice and snug. A perfect match! I was so happy that I bought the right one. 

I literally received the lens the day before I was to meet up with Kera Storrs in Bloomington for a photo shoot. Kera wears these awesome print dresses. Her dress and her style would fit perfectly with images made with a nice old vintage camera.

We first made some images with the box camera without the portrait attachment:

Then I put the portrait attachment on the camera, measured carefully with a tape measure, and made a few exposures:

I was so amazed at how well the lens worked! Of course the camera and the portrait lens are keepers, and I am going to make more images with the combo. There is something so exciting about making pictures with a 95 year old camera!